


Now That It’s Over, Should I Thank You For That, Dear?

by waltzmatildah



Category: Grey’s Anatomy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 15:20:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10902048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/pseuds/waltzmatildah
Summary: What she doesn't get is why Alex is mad at her.Post Chief Resident announcement AU.





	Now That It’s Over, Should I Thank You For That, Dear?

She gets why Meredith is mad at her.

She also gets why Lexie is mad, because Lexie is the little sister and she was there first and family loyalties should always win, no matter how irrational they are.

She has enough sisters of her own to more than understand that particular concept.

She thinks she even gets why Cristina is mad at her, although she’s not entirely convinced how Cristina ever thought she’d be in the running anyway. After all, you can’t take upwards of half your fourth year of residency off without expecting some degree of consequences.

Bullet holes in your friends or not, there are rules about that kind of thing.

_(At least, she’s pretty sure there are. And if there aren’t then, well, there soon will be.)_

What she doesn’t get is why _Alex_ is mad at her.

And especially not when you consider that pretty much _everyone_ is mad at _him_. At least, they were yesterday. And while things do change pretty quickly around this place, like marriages that were and then weren’t and babies that had no mothers and mothers that had no babies, until they suddenly did, she’s pretty confident when she sidles up to him at the bar that the only friend Alex Karev currently has in his life is the shallow pool of scotch in his well-worn tumbler.

She contemplates subtle.

“Why are you mad at me?”

Fails immediately. Blames the champagne glass in her left hand, the empty shot glass in her right and the fact that she has no-one there to censor her.

Blames the fact that she has no-one. Full stop.

He grunts and shoves his shoulders up somewhere around his ears for a split second, lifts the tumbler of scotch to his sneered lips. Or maybe it’s whiskey, or bourbon, or some other revolting concoction that tastes no-where near enough like fruit juice and far too much like the smell of engine oil for her to ever contemplate ingesting it by choice.

She shakes her head loosely. Feels her hair tickle against her bare shoulders. Walks away again before he can offer up a smart-assed remark or, even worse, a reasoned response. Decides in that moment that she doesn’t think she wants to know the answer after all.

Doesn’t need it.

_(She is April Kepner. She is Chief Resident._

_And that’s enough for now.)_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The morning brings with it a fresh perspective.

_(And maybe just the barest hint of a hangover._

_But only a minor one.)_

She gurgles iridescent mouthwash straight from the bottle and curls her hair into careful waves. Applies a slick slash of cherry gloss and grins widely at herself in the bathroom mirror.

Fully expects it to be the only smile she receives all day.

In fact, is almost counting on it to be so.

The events of the past week have given her a new resolve. And an unshakable belief that she earned what she got and that she’s the best person for the job.

After all, Owen Hunt is a great surgeon. He wouldn’t have picked her otherwise.

And the Chief would never have approved his choice if he didn’t believe in her too.

Surely.

_(Right?)_

She swings into the locker room with a clipboard pressed tightly to her chest and a pen clenched between her teeth. Is half way through her carefully prepared monologue of understated motivation before she remembers.

Stops. Blinks.

Removes the pen swiftly and starts again. Uses properly enunciated words this time.

If the impact of her first speech as Chief Resident is lessened by the false start then she refuses to acknowledge it.

There’s a sea of faces turned in her direction. And the incessant chat that had preceded her entrance has fallen to silent. Watching and listening.

It is all she can ask for.

Well, that and adherence to her new magnetic dot system of signing in and out for lunch breaks.

_(And dinner breaks._

_Bathroom breaks._

_That kind of thing.)_

She stops speaking then, asks for questions, comments. Waits. When the silence remains she safely assumes everyone is on board. Grins.

Claps her hands twice and tries a cheery _“Let’s go save some lives, people”_ on for size.

In an end-of-day critique of her performance, she’ll probably concede that Derek Shepherd’s version is catchier.

_(But, for now at least, she’s happy to run with it.)_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She downs a protein shake and a handful of purple grapes for lunch. Is busy picking the remnants of a stray seed from her first, no – second mandibular molar when she remembers. Stands with a start and sends her cafeteria chair tumbling to the tile with a metallic clang.

“I’ll be right back.” Grin deliberate, and just the wrong side of too wide.

The magnetic board is still hanging where she’d located it that morning. A good sign she thinks. That it indicates they’re all still hard at work is less comforting.

Especially when you consider the fact that she’s just left them all gaping around mouthfuls of French fries and green apples.

She huffs and slides her own marker into the _lunch_ position. Glances left and right before she does so to make sure no-one is watching.

Reconsiders.

Removes the board entirely and dumps the whole lot in the trash beneath the desk at her hip. Strikes one up against enthusiasm and concedes it probably wasn’t the most practical of plans in the end.

Vows to learn a valuable lesson from the whole affair nonetheless.

_(Just hasn’t quite decided on which one yet...)_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She celebrates the end of her first full day as Chief Resident with a takeout box of kung pao chicken and a beer that she thinks probably belongs to Alex. Or Jackson. Or one of the myriad women both of them seem to trawl through the front door when she’s pretending she’s not looking.

The beer is gross. She forgets every time she has it just how gross. Always imagines that the next time it won’t be so bad.

_(It pretty much always is.)_

She slides a twisty straw as far into the bottle as she can manage and settles herself in front of the television to watch the late news.

Uses the abject horror she sees in every second story to ground herself firmly back in reality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She thinks she falls asleep at some point because, next thing she knows, the buzzer for half time is sounding at a basketball game between two teams she doesn’t recognise.

There’s a shape beside her on the couch now. Slumped at an angle pointed slightly away from her. Feet crossed on the coffee table in front.

_(Alex.)_

“Good game so far.” Cheerfully proclaimed as she sits up a little straighter. Clenches her jaw tightly around a yawn.

He snorts and turns his head towards her, eyebrows raised.

“What?” An attempt at indignation.

“Whatever…” He trails off, turns his attention back to the commercial currently informing them about a two for one sale at a menswear store in the city that she’s never heard of.

She huffs out a frustrated sigh that barely manages to hide all the words she desperately clamping down on. Words like _why?_ and _why me?_

_(Notes her container of take-out is empty then._

_And that the beer she’d failed to finish is now sans straw and also drained dry. Huh.)_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She spends the next twenty minutes deliberately thumping around the house. Passive-aggressively vacuuming the rug in front of the television three times and stepping on the remote and changing the channel twice.

_(Alex doesn’t so much as blink in her direction.)_

And then suddenly she’s spoken the recycled words before she can recognise that her lips have even moved.

“Why are you mad at me?”

His apparent surprise seems genuine and she takes a step back suddenly, fingers to her lips as though to gather the words in and shovel them back down her throat.

_Oh, crap._

“No-one’s mad at you.” And then it’s her turn to snort.

“You’re _all_ mad at me. You all _hate_ me. You-“

“Kepner-”

“You exclude me from, like-”

“Kepner-”

“…well, basically _everything_ really-”

_“April!”_

She takes another sudden step back, finds herself abruptly sitting on the coffee table. Just shy of her empty take out box. Thanks whomever’s watching over her moment of verbal fail for small mercies.

_(No, really. Thanks.)_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“You don’t get it, do you?”

She’s staring at her thumb-nail like it’s the most important thing she’s seen in days so that she doesn’t have to look at him. She shrugs because words are clearly not working for her right now.

“We don’t hate you. Well, we do, a little bit-” She snorts. Gives him a pointed glare before remembering that she’s not meant to be looking. Slides her gaze back to her knees.

“Mostly we’re just jealous you got Chief.”

“But-”

He stands up. Towers over her. _(She can’t quite fathom whether the move is intentional.)_

“No buts. That’s it. We’re pissed at ourselves because we weren’t good enough. You were. Therefore you get to cop all the crap.”

He shrugs like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. It probably is to him.

“We’re kinda high school like that. You’ll get used to it,” he finishes nonchalantly.

She can feel that she’s gaping. The kind of cartoon mouth that bugs fly into. She slams her teeth shut with an audible clink.

He takes a step or two towards the kitchen before turning back, “Want another beer? I finished your last one. And what’s with the freaking _straw_ by the way?”


End file.
